Leaving Home
I was kicked out of High School the third quarter of my freshman year, and then again, the first quarter of my sophomore year. I was a serious truant. Sex wasn’t the only thing I learned about at Mickey’s house. At 14 I had a pack a day cigarette habit, drank alcohol, smoked pot and took whatever was offered, whenever available. I remember bragging that I never went to a full day of school and I never missed school unless I was getting loaded. Rhonda gave me my first downer, Seconal. It was a revelation, and downers would quickly become my favorite. Kitty, Mickey’s sister, gave me my first acid. I was 15 my first time and we spent a whole weekend high. I had become just another part of the gang at Micky’s and I shared all my new talents with my high school group of friends. From the sexual psychodrama to the LSD. By the time I left home at 16 I had a bleeding ulcer and a handful of what I now understand were dissociative events where I had lost touch completely.
The Hair Salon
I got to the tenderloin in SF and started working for RJ at small hair salon where he rented a chair. I learned to wrap perms, wash and condition hair, apply color, sweep the floor and assist him. I would stand poised for any signal, any look or direction, prompt or need. He trained me so he would never have to move his hand more than a few inches away from the head he was working on. I was always on alert and ready to please. I am to this day, an excellent assistant. I can anticipate needs like a savant. Hyper vigilance can be useful. At the end of the day he would talk to me and sometimes he would take me to dinner or for a drink. Most nights, after I finished cleaning up, he would turn off the lights and I would give him a blowjob.
The Ritual
I remember the only illumination being the streetlight, he sat on the couch by the window and I knelt on the floor between his legs. Resting my head on his lap afterwards he would stroke my head and tell me how great I was that day. Narrate how I did, how I felt. I would feel conflicted. I wanted him to invite me home so badly. I was living in the Tenderloin renting rooms in weekly hotels and he lived in an apartment with his girlfriend on Russian Hill. I was conflicted because a large part of me wanted him to feed me and take me back to his clean quiet home. Protect and care for me. RJ was the first person to ever tell me they loved me on a regular basis.
Yet
There was another part of me that wanted to get back to the streets where I could use whatever was available to stop feeling everything I felt inside. Mostly I felt panic that someone would find out that I wasn’t as cool or smart as I seemed. That they would notice that my bravado was just that, a trick I had picked up from RJ whenever anyone challenged me or my choices. In Redwood City my bravado at least repulsed people if not convinced them of my confidence. San Francisco was something else.
The Tenderloin
It was the beginning of the 80’s and the bath houses were closing. I knew two other people in SF at that time. A friend’s older brother who gave me my first place to sleep, for sex of course, and his gay friend Mark. Mark lived on Polk and California and sold pot. He loved how I cut his hair so I gravitated to the gay tenderloin around Post and Polk thinking it would be safer. It was, marginally. I was adopted by Randy a teenage drug dealer. He introduced me to group of young boys, all under 20 and runaways. At night they dressed up as women and sold themselves on Polk and Larkin streets. I was accepted in varying degrees. They treated me like a naive innocent, and they were right. Compared to their stories of abuse, mine looked tame. They simultaneously insulted, teased, resented, and watched out for me. Those young drag queens (not sure how they identified honestly) helped me find places to live, gave me friendship, insight on how to make it on the streets, and stole my shoes. They called me Fish, and I was okay with that. He also introduced me to Bennie who would save my ass more than once.
Dinner with Micky
After being in the city almost a year RJ told me he’d invited Micky up for dinner. I was excited. It was like my mom and dad getting together after a separation. She met us at the hair salon, and we started drinking there. RJ was at his most confronting from the start. We were already pretty drunk when we got to the Hunan and fed her really spicy food. We all drank more to wash down the fiery flavors. I remember being blurry eyed but happy, sitting with them both so close in that tiny restaurant at that tiny table. They were even telling funny stories about my childhood, laughing but loving me.
Then RJ said, “You should watch Chrissy suck my cock, it’s amazing.” Micky chuckled a bit and glanced at me and said “No, that’s okay.” She got really quiet, but RJ kept at her, he seemed half serious in that ‘I dare you way’, but also hurtful. Wanting to be cruel to her and prove she had no power over me anymore. Once Micky flinched, he kept at her, describing how much I loved him when I did it, bragging at my attachment to him, so much stronger than my attachment to her. It’s not that I hadn’t been a performing monkey for him before, but I’d never ‘performed’ sex before, and I remember my heartbreaking. I knew if she said yes it would happen and I prayed she wouldn’t. I hoped he would stop, and we could go back to smoking and drinking, he didn’t. I kept completely still and quiet. The more he pushed the more agitated she got and then she said, “I don’t want to have sex with you and Chris!” Micky made some hurried goodbyes and left. I remember thinking, we aren’t going to have sex, only he is, but I was glad she left. It was the last time I saw her for 3 years.
